Kamui
by YFate
Summary: "Find him," he said, although Ino had no idea what it was he wanted of her, even as she folded back inside the darkness. "Find Itachi…"


Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, etc., of Naruto. This story is for entertainment purposes only, and not for profit.

_Summary: "Find him," he said, although she had no idea what it was he wanted of her, even as she folded back inside the darkness. "Find Itachi…"_

**KAMUI**

_A/N: This idea arose from watching Kakashi hit Deidara with a dimensional jutsu called "Kamui" and the "What if…?" scenario of Pain's attack on Konohagakure._

**Chapter One**

Everyone, everything, was gone.

Her village, her friends, her father - she caught back a sob, breath burning inside her lungs as she coughed and choked on the smoke, sucking in more air to keep on running - _she had to keep running! _Everything and everyone she had ever known and loved, gone, gone, gone. Destroyed by the Akatsuki, by their Leader, or the simulacrum known as the Deva Path. Five of the Six Paths of Pain had been destroyed, but the sixth had remained - still remained, for all she knew, with Naruto dead and defeated, like Hinata and Tsunade, Kakashi and Shizune and so many - _too many! - _others.

The sky was on fire behind her. The darkness bled into brilliance, an ominous orange glower that crackled and roared on the lashing winds that fanned the rising flames. Konoha burned, and those few left able to fled into the night, scattering like so many leaves through the thick forests that might turn into their very graves, for the fires had spread to the surrounding trees that had always sheltered the ninja village. Dry wood caught, and sparks flew throughout the night. The roar of the raging forest fire behind her accompanied the roar inside Ino's ears. The thunder of her heavy heart echoed the heavy footfalls as she lifted limbs too heavy again and again. She pushed herself on, her father's dying scream inside her mind, imprinted in lines of bloody fire across her brain as the roof of the burning building collapsed above him. _"Run, Ino! RUN!"_

Run she did, even when she wanted to collapse with exhaustion, the air burning in her lungs as the tears burned in her eyes and the knowledge burned inside her heart. Smoke was everywhere, rising above the roaring skeleton of Konoha, painting the gathering clouds behind her with ruddy blood as pure terror drove her ever on. On and on until the red clouds against the black night abruptly reared up before her - yet somehow underneath the towering ferns, where the Hyuuga's yin-yang gentle fist symbol formed between spreading leaves.

Ino's blue eyes widened, her numb brain trying to wrap around the sight even as she tripped in her distraction, falling with searing agony as she scraped her knees on the rocks hidden beneath the dry pine needles. She would have cried out, but the smoke wrapped around her shuddering breath, and tt came out as a hoarse cough. Doubling over, knives stabbing through her lungs and belly, she would have vomited if she'd had anything to bring up. Wracked by dry heaves, her vision swam before her, the tears not helping as she desperately tried to focus on the strange creature grinning down at her.

Teeth, too many teeth. A face, white and black, with glowing yellow eyes too sunny a color, for they absurdly looked like daffodils. Red clouds dancing in the darkness - her mind screamed recognition. _Akatsuki!_ She threw her last kunai, blindly fumbling for more in her empty pouch even as he grinned down at her, two voices blurring together in sarcastic counterpoint, saying words she couldn't understand. She snarled, fingers crooked like claws, and threw herself at him, unwilling to die without fighting. Always fighting, flailing, drowning - trying to escape the clutch of death but she could not run. She was trapped, trapped by those evil yellow eyes, those terrible teeth, the raging fire around her that bled the clouds on his cloak as it swirled over her, the darkness consuming her as it had consumed everyone around her...damn them...damn them _all..._

ooOOOoo

She had to be in hell.

"Find him," the voice said, refusing to be denied, saying it over and over until she wanted to scream with it.

She mutely shook her head, stubborn, and the searing agony came again as his mind took over hers, sending it back to the black dimension that warped her world into pain and agony and constant unreality. She counted the paths of pain, lost count, added more, lost herself in the delirium. Babbled and cried and raged and wept, stubbornly clinging to her refusal even as her mind shattered beneath the continual onslaught, the strange madness that was this dimension where no human was ever meant to be.

_Kamui_. She heard the word, recognized it - the dimensional world the Uchiha exploited by opening a gate between this one and theirs with the Sharingan - and lost that recognition, time and again. Fear choked her, each time _he_ came, the one with the orange mask and the lurid red light gleaming behind it. He demanded, she refused, he then spun his bleeding eye and sucked her into a world of utter chaos and complete, unending, unendurable darkness. Stealing her sanity little by little as she was dragged back inside that void to gibber and swear and choke and sob, her constant scream unheard in the darkness that was the absence of all sensation, so completely deprived of even any recognizable feeling and utterance.

_Sensory deprivation,_ her logical mind supplied, and_ a tactic used for torture. _Succinct descriptions, all spoken in a patient, droning, teaching voice from her Academy days. She knew, understood, and then lost that understanding time and again, as she lost everything: all cohesive thought, all cohesive awareness, as sense and sensation were sucked out of her once again by the swirling Sharingan. The question, the refusal, the void where she was tortured into sobbing terror - that terror building and building until she screamed, throat working convulsively as no sound emerged in this empty void that didn't even know what sound _was. _Unheard, unheard, unheard, and still she screamed and screamed and screamed, her mind blanking out into an unending spasm of agony, refusing to be lost inside that darkness. Refusing to become a part of it, lost forever in the empty twisting churning burning chaos...

She pleaded, begged, wept even when next he came to tell her, "Find him." But still she refused, not knowing now what he was even asking her to do. Stupid, stubborn, she could only shake her head - weakly this time, for her body was fading, wasting away under the constant torture. The shaking continued, her body wracked by violent tremors of dawning fear. She cried, the tears falling down ashen cheeks as her heart froze, knowing what came next.

The red light gleamed, spinning, spinning, and she felt her awareness being sucked down and down. Once more drowning, disappearing, sealed back inside the darkness that was so much torture for her, and she knew _this_ time she would be lost within it forever. She was so weak, too weak, to survive it this time, and her despair enveloped her as did the blackness, sucking away even the feeling and knowledge of it. She was stripped of everything she was - who, what, so naked and reduced to a cornered animal who hissed and bit and fought, refusing to give up, refusing to give in. She wouldn't be lost forever, she wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't no no _**NO!**_

Her scream of rage and despair and agonized, utter hopelessness spun out into the darkness, which swallowed it in silence, muffling it in darkness, stealing it away from her as it would finally steal her away and make her a part of itself…_dying dying dying gone forever lost forever_…_her terrible scream unheard by anyone..._

Except, this time, it was.

ooOOOoo

The answer to her silent call came with such a rush, spinning her up inside it. She fought weakly, thinking it was the darkness of Kamui finally come to claim her, but she was sent strength, warmth, reassurance. She clung to those feelings, sobbing like a child, and folded herself into it like she had once folded herself inside her father's strong arms, held tight to his chest after some childish nightmare. He rocked her, soothing her, and combed the sweaty tangles off her cheeks. She cried into him, cried with relief and recognition and even some embarrassment, for she had always been so stubbornly determined to face her fears alone, prove to him and everyone else how strong she was, how independent.

He silently reassured her, holding her close against him, enveloping her with that unyielding strength and she went limp, finally giving in as his arms tightened and his attention went - elsewhere. The world was tilting around them, the darkness becoming a burgeoning wave he somehow controlled, his eyes glowing with blood that spun and spun like the rising tidal wave they rode up and up and then _out - _

And the world suddenly rushed back to her, and she stared up into an orange mask that was tittering an insane giggle as he danced and patted her on the head, saying, "Good girl! Ino is a good girl! You found him! You found Itachi!"

And then the darkness came, but it was the soothing darkness of sleep, and she folded beneath it, still lost to knowing what it all meant, and why it had all happened. But that _presence_ was there, inside her head, holding her close and gently carding her tangled hair back from her tear-stained face with fingers not truly there as he held her against him. Wordlessly reassuring her, telling her to rest, to sleep, to let him...let him...she knew not what, but the thought faded as sleep finally overtook her.


End file.
